The Dala’il al-Khayrat is the first major book in Islamic history which compiled litanies of peace and blessings upon the Prophet Muhammad. It is also the most popular and most universally acclaimed collection of litanies asking God to bless him.

The legend behind the origin of the Dala’il al-Khayrat claims that al-Jazuli once awoke late for his morning prayers and began to look in vain for pure water to perform ritual ablutions. In the midst of his search al-Jazuli encountered a young girl who was aware of al-Jazuli's famed religiosity and was bewildered on why al-Jazuli could not find pure water. The girl then spat into a well which miraculously overflowed with pure sweet water for al-Jazuli to perform ablutions. Consequent to performing prayer, al-Jazuli inquired to the means by which the girl achieved such a high spiritual station. The girl replied it was simply by "Making constant prayer for God to bless the best of creation by the number of breaths and heartbeats." Al-Jazuli then resolved to write a work collecting litanies of prayers asking God to bless and show mercy and kindness to Muhammad.

Al-Jazuli then moved east to Medina where he would recite the whole of the Dala’il al-Khayrat twice daily at the Prophet Muhammad's grave in Al-Masjid an-Nabawi. The Dala'il Khayrat has since been seen as a testament of love and passionate longing for Muhammad.

Many of exegesis were written on the Dala'il Khayrat - most notably by the scholar Yusuf an-Nabhani in his work Afdal al-Salawat, and 'Abd al-Majid al-Sharnubi al-Azhari's Sharh Dala'il Khayrat. A classic Ottoman era work by Kara Davud is popular in Turkish, titled Muwafik-ul Khayrat Linayl-el Barakat Fi Khidmat-as Saadat, in short known as "Kara Davud".